Genesis 3:8

The Judgment Oracles of God at the Fall

3:8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God moving about ¹  in the orchard at the breezy time ²  of the day, and they hid ³  from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard.

Genesis 16:8

16:8 He said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” She replied, “I’m running away from ⁴  my mistress, Sarai.”

Genesis 35:7

35:7 He built an altar there and named the place El Bethel ⁵  because there God had revealed himself ⁶  to him when he was fleeing from his brother.

Genesis 36:7

36:7 because they had too many possessions to be able to stay together and the land where they had settled ⁷  was not able to support them because of their livestock.

Genesis 41:31

41:31 The previous abundance of the land will not be remembered ⁸  because of the famine that follows, for the famine will be very severe. ⁹ 

Genesis 47:13

47:13 But there was no food in all the land because the famine was very severe; the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan wasted away ¹⁰  because of the famine.

[3:8]  ¹ tn The Hitpael participle of הָלָךְ (halakh, “to walk, to go”) here has an iterative sense, “moving” or “going about.” While a translation of “walking about” is possible, it assumes a theophany, the presence of the Lord God in a human form. This is more than the text asserts.

[3:8]  ² tn The expression is traditionally rendered “cool of the day,” because the Hebrew word רוּחַ (ruakh) can mean “wind.” U. Cassuto (Genesis: From Adam to Noah, 152-54) concludes after lengthy discussion that the expression refers to afternoon when it became hot and the sun was beginning to decline. J. J. Niehaus (God at Sinai [SOTBT], 155-57) offers a different interpretation of the phrase, relating יוֹם (yom, usually understood as “day”) to an Akkadian cognate umu (“storm”) and translates the phrase “in the wind of the storm.” If Niehaus is correct, then God is not pictured as taking an afternoon stroll through the orchard, but as coming in a powerful windstorm to confront the man and woman with their rebellion. In this case קוֹל יְהוָה (qol yÿhvah, “sound of the Lord”) may refer to God’s thunderous roar, which typically accompanies his appearance in the storm to do battle or render judgment (e.g., see Ps 29).

[3:8]  ³ tn The verb used here is the Hitpael, giving the reflexive idea (“they hid themselves”). In v. 10, when Adam answers the Lord, the Niphal form is used with the same sense: “I hid.”

[16:8]  ⁴ tn Heb “from the presence of.”

[35:7]  ⁷ sn The name El-Bethel means “God of Bethel.”

[35:7]  ⁸ tn Heb “revealed themselves.” The verb נִגְלוּ (niglu), translated “revealed himself,” is plural, even though one expects the singular form with the plural of majesty. Perhaps אֱלֹהִים (’elohim) is here a numerical plural, referring both to God and the angelic beings that appeared to Jacob. See the note on the word “know” in Gen 3:5.

[36:7]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “land of their settlements.”

[41:31]  ¹³ tn Heb “known.”

[41:31]  ¹⁴ tn Or “heavy.”

[47:13]  ¹⁶ tn The verb לַהַה (lahah, = לָאָה, la’ah) means “to faint, to languish”; it figuratively describes the land as wasting away, drooping, being worn out.